Yearwood Takes Center Stage

Trisha Yearwood is one of the hottest young country performers to emerge in recent years. While she`s not a songwriter, she sure knows how to pick tunes that deserve radio play and get it.

At the West Palm Beach Auditorium last Friday night, a small but enthusiastic audience knew the words to almost every song in her 90-minute set.

Blessed with a big, expressive voice reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt, Yearwood sang beautifully. Unfortunately, she lacked stage presence. Pleasant though her performance was, it showed that she is not quite ready to be a headliner.

Yearwood has been touring as Travis Tritt`s opening act. The West Palm Beach date was a rare headlining performance for her, allowing her and her excellent band to stretch out and play longer than usual. For the first half of the concert, however, they neglected to take advantage of the opportunity.

The first three songs were among her perkiest hits. That`s What I Like About You sports clever wordplay and a danceable beat. She`s in Love With the Boy is a charming up-tempo song about teen-age romance.

Her performance on each was good, but then she came to what should be her signature tune, The Wrong Side of Memphis, which she and the band hurried through. That song logically should have been her windup number. It`s a fast bluesy number about a woman taking charge of her life, and it offers a lot of room for singer and musicians to show off.

Instead, it seemed truncated, even shorter than the single played on the radio.

My guess is that the first half-hour or so was the same foreshortened show she performs as an opening act, because later on, she seemed more relaxed and energetic.

The bridge between the wasted opportunities of the early songs and the aplomb with which she performed the second half of the set was an interesting acoustic treatment of a Mexican-sounding song. It showcased not only Yearwood`s voice, but the fine playing of her two guitarists, Jim Hearst and Johnny Garcia.

Another problem with Yearwood`s stage presence was inadvertently summed up by a teen-age girl sitting behind me. ``She`s not like a celebrity,`` the girl said to a friend. ``She`s more like your cousin Jennifer who sings at Christmas.`` Yearwood often stooped to shake hands with children at the foot of the stage, an endearing gesture.

That`s fine for a singer who wants to be liked as a person, but it`s not enough for a performer of Yearwood`s potential. She mingled too much with her band members, as though reluctant to step forward and commit herself to a fronting role.

She needs to learn to take command of the stage like, say, Wynonna Judd or Reba McEntire. Because of her timidity, she projected no sex appeal whatsoever, which is not bad in itself except that she is plenty sexy on vinyl.

It`s not that she lacks charisma, perhaps, but merely the confidence to give it reign.